Třeboňsko

A man-made water world of Renaissance fishponds, canals and pine woods on sand — flat trails on old dams under four-hundred-year-old oaks.

The walking runs on the pond dams — under ancient oaks, through pine woods on sand, past reed beds loud with birds — and because the terrain is dead flat, the dense net of dams and dikes lets a route be assembled at any length. The system you walk on is Rožmberk engineering from the 16th century, Rožmberk pond the largest and the Zlatá stoka canal feeding the chain — proof a cultural landscape can be a natural treasure, which earned it both CHKO and UNESCO biosphere reserve status. For the birds, the Velký and Malý Tisý reserve is the ornithological heart.

Třeboň itself, with its Renaissance square, brewery and the Schwarzenberg tomb across its town pond, is the natural base, around two and a quarter hours from Prague by train.